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As I’m in the midst of edits again, I’ve thought often of this post. Happy writing, friends.

The truth is that the piece of art which seems so profoundly right in its finished state may earlier have been only inches or seconds away from total collapse.
— ART AND FEAR: OBSERVATIONS ON THE PERILS (AND REWARDS) OF ARTMAKING

This quote has been running through my mind since July.

There are so many ways for a work of art to fail. But thankfully there are even more opportunities to try and get it right. During the editing process, BLUE BIRDS has balanced on the edge of disaster again and again, but it has come back, stronger, clearer, more fully itself.

And one day, I will set it free. It will be a separate thing from me. I’ll no longer need to stand by, ready to interpret or hold it steady.

It will fly.

The post When Art is Seconds Away From Total Collapse originally appeared on Caroline Starr Rose

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While I was reading Summer of Lost and Found I wanted to sit down and have a good talk with Rebecca. I hope this interview will read like the conversation I wish we’d had — because in many ways that’s exactly what it is: two authors talking about our experiences writing about the island of Roanoke.

Have you been to the island of Roanoke? Your descriptions of the island, from the flora to the town of Manteo to the historical sites, were so vivid!

Thanks! I have been to Roanoke, and I hope to visit the island again. I spent a week there when I was working on the third or fourth draft of the book. It was thrilling to visit a place that has captured my imagination since I was a kid. And the island didn’t disappoint me. I love traveling to places with a lot of history and a lot of natural beauty, and Roanoke certainly has both. I am a bit of a plant nerd (Nell’s mom has one of my dream careers), so I was really interested in the vegetation on the island—I took tons of photographs to document it.

I found it interesting that my Alis and your Ambrose both contrast London with Roanoke. Such a different world it must have been for those 1587 colonists. And Nell experiences some of the same, coming to the island from New York City.

I found the similarities in their impressions of Roanoke so interesting, too. I love the passage in Blue Birds in which Alis compares Roanoke with London. I think both Alis and Ambrose remark on how the island’s fresh smells are a delight, coming from the stinky streets of London.

The contrast between those two places was something that I thought about a lot while writing the book—how jarring it must have been to travel from the London crowds to a less developed place. Moving is difficult, at any age and in any time period. But it’s hard to even imagine what an adjustment coming to Roanoke would have been for early colonists. While I was visiting the settlement site at the Roanoke Island Festival Park, one of the guides pointed out how important tradespeople were in the colonist community. They couldn’t buy building supplies for their new homes, so they needed woodworkers and blacksmiths. It made me wonder about things like the state of the colonists’ shoes—they couldn’t simply go purchase more if they wore them out while traipsing around the island. (Hopefully one of the colonists was a cobbler?) The colonists weren’t only leaving most of their worldly possessions behind, but also their ways of daily life.

It’s funny, but I realized while making the trip from NYC to Roanoke that I was imitating/recreating the experience of my main character, Nell. I had already researched the island, but even so I found many things to surprise and delight me when I experienced it firsthand. Some of Nell’s observations are really based on my own—things I noted or was intrigued about, like how green and forested the island is, as opposed to sandy-beachy, or how some of Manteo’s architecture incorporates the look of English building styles.

When I was writing Blue Birds, I sometimes struggled with the hazy aspects of the history. My editor was the one who taught me that history can be hazy but stories can’t. In other words, for the sake of the story, I had to come down on one side or the other when it came to certain events that historians are unsure about. What decisions did you have to make when creating Ambrose’s story about aspects of history that weren’t clear cut?

I love that lesson from your editor—and I will use it in the future! When writing historical fiction, I have a hard time straying from facts. My tendency is to get bogged down in the details I’ve uncovered during research—I want to include every single interesting fact. I have to remind myself that my first priority is to tell the story, and overloading it with historical details, as fascinating as I find them, might not serve the story—or my reader. For example, at first I tried to incorporate real artifacts that have been uncovered in and around the island, but eventually I decided to fictionalize most of the ones in the book.

The historical record so far doesn’t offer a definitive conclusion about what really happened to the Lost Colonists, and I found that both frustrating and kind of liberating. I was fortunate in that a Roanoke historian read the manuscript for me and critiqued the historical accuracy. Luckily, the choices I made about the more ambiguous elements were plausible enough that she didn’t object. There have been some great archaeological finds in the past few years (I think you and I had a Twitter conversation last summer about the Site X artifacts that made big news), so even if it makes some of the history in my book inaccurate, I hope at some point the truth is uncovered!

It’s both strange and satisfying to read someone else’s story that deals with the same characters in mine, ones based on real people. I had the same experience when reading Cate of the Lost Colony, another Roanoke story. It’s almost like I’m in a club with a handful of authors. What was that like for you?

I am thrilled to think that I’m now in the club of Roanoke authors! Before the book went off to copy edits, I only read nonfiction about the island and the Lost Colony. I was really concerned that other authors’ unique visions of Roanoke would influence mine. The day I turned in the last revision, I pulled my copy of Blue Birds off the shelf because I had been dying to read it. “Strange and satisfying” is a great way to describe reading other fiction about Roanoke. I felt like I knew your characters before I even met them on the page because the story and setting of Roanoke were so familiar to me. Some of Alis’s beautiful observations almost felt like déjà vu after spending so much time imagining characters that would be her contemporaries. But at the same time, your Roanoke story shed new light on the island and its history and people. I’ve incorporated this idea of how perspective affects historical fiction into a writing workshop—in which several kids choose the same historical setting, event, or character and independently write a short scene about it. When they compare their writing, it’s so interesting to see how much each writer’s perspective shifts the focus.

Was there anyone from the 1587 colony that especially intrigued you? I was fascinated with Thomas Humfrey, the only child to travel to Roanoke without a parent. I originally had Thomas in my story, but later blended him with my George Howe Jr. character.

Wow, I wasn’t aware of that part of Thomas Humfrey’s story—that is fascinating! What a brave kid. I thought a lot about George Howe Jr., actually, because of how his father died on the island. It was so sad to think of a child going through an experience like the long and trying journey to Roanoke, and then losing a parent—I think only six days after they arrived. Early on, I considered making George a central character in my book, but I ended up focusing on another colonist.

Like Ambrose, Nell is missing her father and is lonely for a friend. What else do your two characters have in common? What does this show us about the past and the present?

I think both Ambrose and Nell are very curious and loyal. Their friendship blossoms despite their city-country differences because they are both so passionate about exploring their surroundings and uncovering the history around them. Now that you bring it up, what they have in common might show how being in that middle-grade “age of wonder,” and starting to discover the world around you, is a universal experience. I loved how the friendship between Kimi and Alis developed in Blue Birds, and seeing what those girls shared. It’s interesting that so many Roanoke stories express this theme in unique ways.

I see we both read Lee Miller’s book, Roanoke: Solving the Mystery of the Lost Colony. What did you think of her theory that the pilot Simon Fernandez tried to sabotage the colonists and that abandoning them to Roanoke was part of the plan?

I found that a really intriguing idea (I do like a good conspiracy theory!), and Lee Miller makes a convincing argument. But I’m not convinced there is enough research to back it up at this point. For now I’m more inclined to think that Simon Fernandez was an opportunist—and probably a jerk—but not necessarily a saboteur. I’m curious to hear what you think about this!

I’m with you on this one. In addition to Fernandez’s strong personality, I think John White wasn’t the strongest leader. It feels inevitable that they clashed. Speaking of Governor White, what do you think really happened once he left the island?

Oh, this is so hard to answer. The kid in me, who fell in love with this history mystery, still wants to believe that something creepy or shocking befell the colonists. When I was visiting the Roanoke Island Festival Park museum, I looked at a binder full of theories that kid visitors had written down: alien abductions, massive hurricanes, Spanish spies and pirates all played a part. Because of the famous “CRO” carving, I believe some colonists left the island to join Manteo’s village on Croatoan. But based on some recent archaeological discoveries—and what a guide at Fort Raleigh told me when I was visiting—I think it’s also likely that a group colonists left the area to head “50 miles into the main,” toward the Chesapeake, where they would have an easier time setting up a permanent colony. Over the years, the group(s) probably slowly dissolved as many of the colonists assimilated into Native communities. I loved the way Blue Birds ended and explained what happened, and I was so satisfied by the last scene! (Also, the song that Alis overhears is one that I actually sang in a youth choir, and it has stuck around in my head for the past couple of decades, so I enjoyed that detail very much.)

This is the second book you’ve written that blends the past with the present. I’d love to hear your thoughts behind doing this.

I’ve loved history, and historical fiction, since I was a kid. I think the books I’ve written that blend contemporary with historical are sort of a natural expression of that enthusiasm. I didn’t consciously try to do this, but the way my characters stumble onto history might reflect how my own fascination with it developed as a young reader—I’d come across a factoid or visit a historical site with my family and get completely wrapped up in that story of the past. Nell and Audrey (from my first book, When Audrey Met Alice) both do that. I do kind of hope readers might want to dig deeper into some of the historical content in my books—or that they inspire kids to explore whatever history topics fascinate them.

I did just finish a third book, though, and it is all historical fiction. That was a new (and fun) writing challenge, to focus only on the past!

Thank you so much, Rebecca, for indulging me in this conversation. I hope our paths cross in person someday soon. Readers, learn more about Rebecca and her books, including her newest release, The Summer of Lost and Found, at her website, www.rebeccabehrens.com.

The post An Interview with Rebecca Behrens, Author of The Summer of Lost and Found originally appeared on Caroline Starr Rose

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KidLit Auction for John and Betsy MacLeod

 

Click through to sign up for my quarterly newsletter and you’ll receive a free printable from my novel, Blue Birds. Enjoy!

The post KidLit Auction: Bid on a Verse Novel Critique originally appeared on Caroline Starr Rose

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In 2009 I stopped teaching without any publishing prospects, but with the burning conviction it was time to put everything behind my efforts to finally sell a book. I did what every other aspiring author was doing then: I started a blog.

A few months later, I signed with my first agent. Four months after that, May B. was under contract. Through highs and lows this blog has been a constant, a place for me to think through ideas, share bits of encouragement, introduce readers to new books, and celebrate my own. Whether you’ve been here from the beginning or are entirely new, I thank you for the ways you’ve added to the conversation and become a key part of my writing life.

Over the next few months I plan to highlight key posts that have risen to the top. Today’s are the posts that are read most often (I wrote this before last week, when this post, now the top post of all time, went live). While my sense is most regular readers are aspiring writers, it’s interesting to note these posts almost exclusively speak to teachers, librarians, and parents looking to share books with their children.

Running a Book Club for Kids

The first post in a series based on my experience running after-school book clubs, this post has been number one around here for years. Included in the post are links to the rest of the series.

The Gift of Friendship

I love knowing that the second most-widely read post on the blog is essentially a love letter to my dear friend, Jamie C. Martin, whose own book comes out later this year. The post touches on the ways friends bolster and inspire us, in this case how Jamie pushed me to be brave when writing Blue Birds.

Third-Grade Book Club Reading Lists

Straight from my after-school book club days, this is the list I used with third-grade readers, plus a run down of everything I included in my Welcome to Book Club handout.

Classroom Connections: Fish in a Tree by Lynda Mullaly Hunt

Lynda’s had a pretty phenomenal year, hitting the NYT Bestseller’s List with her second middle-grade novel, Fish in a Tree, and going on to win the American Library Association’s Schneider Family Book Award, which “embodies an artistic expression of the disability experience for child and adolescent audiences.” This interview includes links to Lynda’s website and educator’s guide.

Fast Five: Novels About Teachers and Their Students

This one’s been a favorite for a long time, with a number of oldie but goodies sure to inspire.

Reading in the Wild: 5 Things Wild Readers Do

Teacher turned author turned Scholastic Press guru, Donalyn Miller, has written two glorious books about reading and teaching that I devoured. This post is one of several that grew out of her second book, Reading in the Wild: The Book Whisperer’s Keys to Cultivating Lifelong Reading Habits. Read our interview based on Donalyn’s first book, The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child, here.

Click through to sign up for my quarterly newsletter and you’ll receive a free printable from my novel, Blue Birds. Enjoy!

The post Top Posts of All Time originally appeared on Caroline Starr Rose

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Dear Ms. Rose,

I am a fifth-grader from Maryland. I enjoyed reading Blue Birds. When I first started reading I was a bit uninterested because it took so long for Kimi and Alis to meet. When they met, a whole new world was opened to my eyes. They didn’t look at each other like strangers; they looked at each other like best friends would, despite appearances. At first, they longed for their best friends that were like them, Joan and Alawa. They soon realized that best friends aren’t people who are like you, best friends are people who look up for you and protect you, yet show all their love.

I love reading historical fiction, it’s so fascinating. Thank you for making Blue Birds, sometimes, there is hardly any historical fiction in the library. I randomly grabbed your book off the shelf because it looked interesting. When I found out it was about Roanoke, I had to check it out. Did you like history growing up?

I also love writing. Writing stories is my favorite pastime. I get to be creative and use my imagination to inspire others. Please write more stories, preferably, about Valley Forge and the revolution. I’d also like some writing tips, or poetry tips.

I don’t really like poetry that much. I like writing things out and being descriptive. You mastered poetry.* You wrote poetically, yet made it intriguing. Once I started reading, I couldn’t stop.

Sincerely,
A Reader (age 10)

* the reader’s emphasis, not mine!

The post Blue Birds Love: Words from a Young Reader originally appeared on Caroline Starr Rose

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As I write, sometimes an image for a book’s cover starts to form in my mind. Back in 2014, when my editor told me cover discussions for Blue Birds were underway, I took a moment to get on paper the idea I had in my head. It wasn’t meant as direction for illustrators Elena and Anna Balbusso, it was simply a chance for me to record what I had been picturing for months. I set the sketch aside, showing no one.

I love how closely the Balbusso sisters’ vision aligned with mine. And I especially love the way a portion of the original cover has been used for the paperback version that released yesterday, a true echo of that sketch I drew two years ago.

Don’t forget you have until Friday to win a Blue Birds prize pack — one for you, one for your friend. And you can always pick up a copy from your local bookstore or order one online.

 

The post A New Cover for Blue Birds appeared first on Caroline Starr Rose.

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Tomorrow my dear book releases in paperback form.

Blue Birds is a celebration of friendship, and I can think of no better way to celebrate the book’s paperback release than a giveaway meant for you and your friend. Each winner will receive two signed paperbacks and notecard packets (the notecards feature one of my favorite quotes from the book). One packet is for you to keep, the other is to give to your friend.

There are four different ways to win, meaning I’m giving away eight books and notecard sets. You can enter all four giveaways, increasing your chance to win.

Want to join in? It’s easy. All four contests close at the end of Friday, January 8. US residents only, please.

Contest #1

Re-tweet the Blue Birds tweet that went live last night. Simply click through to @CStarrRose to find it. It’s the one that says Retweet this by 1/8 to enter the #BlueBirdsbook giveaway. Win 2 books and 2 notecard packs (for you and a friend).

Contest #2

Share a quote about friendship on Facebook or Twitter with the hashtag #BlueBirdsbook. Here’s an example for you:  No friendship is an accident.  ― O. Henry #BlueBirdsbook

Contest #3

Share a picture of you and your friend on Facebook or Twitter with the hashtag #BlueBirdsbook. **A bonus entry goes to everyone who includes a bluebird or a copy of Blue Birds in the picture.

Contest #4

Just for newsletter subscribers (you can subscribe by clicking here). To enter, simply hit “reply” to the newsletter I send out on Tuesday, January 5 and include your mailing address.

Questions? Feel free to leave them in the comments section below.

The post A Blue Birds Giveaway with Four Ways to Win appeared first on Caroline Starr Rose.

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Blue Birds is a celebration of friendship, and I can think of no better way to celebrate the book’s paperback release next month than a giveaway meant for you and your friend. Each winner will receive two signed paperbacks and the two notecard packets shown above. One is for you to keep, the other to give to your friend.

There will be four different ways to win, meaning I’m giving away eight books and notecard sets. You can enter all four giveaways, increasing your chance to win.

Interested? Curious? Ready to learn more? Once January’s here, I’ll give you more details, but for now, it wouldn’t hurt to find a quote about friendship that’s meaningful to you and hunt down a picture of you and your friend.

The post A January Giveaway: Four Ways to Win a Blue Birds Prize Pack for You and a Friend appeared first on Caroline Starr Rose.

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Sometimes I meet characters in books who feel like friends. And other times I meet characters I’m sure would be friends with my characters, if only they’d had a chance to meet somehow.

Mimi Yoshiko Oliver from Marilyn Hilton’s beautiful verse novel, Full Cicada Moon, reminds me of my Kimi and Alis. It’s Mimi’s passion and her “raindrops are stronger than hammers” approach to the world that feels familiar and true.

In case you’re curious, here are some characters I know would be friends with Mavis Betterly:

Lydia Hawkins from Child of the Mountains
Francie Nolan from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Mattie Gokey from A Northern Light
Elisa Cantor from Undercover

 

The post A New Friend for Kimi and Alis appeared first on Caroline Starr Rose.

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Part of my month-long writing-free vacation was spent with these lovelies.* Like I did with May B., I collected addresses in dribs and drabs over the last year, waiting until I had a stretch of time to devote to stamping, labeling, and writing.

On 699 postcards. For real.

While it isn’t the 1,662 I sent out for May B., it was still a pretty big commitment, one that I found surprisingly satisfying.

You’ve probably heard the rate of return on direct mailings falls somewhere between 1/2 and 2 percent. Pretty dismal and probably not worth the effort, right? For me, the process has become a ritual where I can exert the tiniest bit of control over the unwieldy and unpredictable experience of releasing a book into the world.

Because the books I write are largely sold to the school and library market, that’s where I focus. I had graphic designer Sierra Fong create two postcards for my mailings this time around, one meant to introduce Over in the Wetlands to the schools and libraries of the Gulf Coast, and another to share both Wetlands and Blue Birds with New Mexico schools and libraries.

Here’s what’s happened since the postcards went out: I have had a handful of teachers email me after receiving the card. My sales for both of these books have increased slightly in the last few weeks.** I’ve gotten more website hits from the areas I’ve targeted. And I’ve been invited to speak at Mosquero Elementary School, a K-6 school of 22 students in Mosquero, NM (population 93). Seeing young readers in corners of my state I’ve never visited is pretty much the best thing out there.

While I’ll never know the actual results of the mailing, every postcard was a chance to directly tell a teacher or librarian about something I believe in, and in this age of quick and impersonal blasts of information, it felt significant, important even. However small the return, my efforts to match books with readers has left a mark, perhaps in ways I’ll never know.

Which is exactly how this publication thing works, anyway.

 

*Points to the person who catches the typo. My son spotted it immediately!

**Penguin Random House has a website called Author Portal where sales can be tracked, using numbers from Nieslen BookScan. Many, many bookstores don’t report sales, and few, if any, schools or libraries do. Until statements come in months from now, it’s really impossible to know true numbers, but the BookScan stats are a start.

The post Postcard Marketing in the Age of the Internet appeared first on Caroline Starr Rose.

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I’ve been a fan of Tsh Oxenreider since 2009 (which is pretty much forever on the Internet). Back then, I was just about ready to jump into this thing called blogging, but I wasn’t sure how to begin. My dear friend Jamie Martin sent me a “how to” link that led me to Tsh’s blog, The Art of Simple. I’ve been faithfully reading ever since.

About four years ago, Tsh started a podcast called The Simple Show, which has kept me company through numerous runs and cleaning days and afternoons walking the dog. And perhaps last summer, as I listened while taking the dog on one more lap around the block, I cooked up some things I’d say to Tsh if I were ever on her show. Which was utterly ridiculous. Tsh and I had interacted some in her blog’s comment section and a few times on Twitter, but that was pretty much it.

So imagine my surprise when September brought an email with a podcast request. “No worries,” Tsh said, “if you’re not interested.”

I was most definitely very over-the-top interested. I hope you’ll listen in!

The post So Wow. The Simple Show Podcast appeared first on Caroline Starr Rose.

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The talented Sierra Fong designed these gorgeous Over in the Wetlands and Blue Birds bookmarks for me, and I’d love to send you a set! I also have stickers of both covers. If you’d like one of each, simply drop me an email with your mailing address (caroline starr AT yahoo) and I’ll send them along. I’m happy to give you any combination you’d like: four Wetlands stickers, two Blue Birds stickers and two Wetlands bookmarks — whatever you choose.

Teachers, librarians, homeschool families, book club folks, I’m also offering a class set (for lack of a better term) to the first ten people who contact me. This would be up to thirty bookmarks and stickers of your choosing. Again, tell me what would best serve your group, and that’s what you’ll get, whether it’s a Blue Birds pack, a Wetlands pack, or some combo in between.

And now for the request I have of you. I’m not one who feels especially comfortable asking for this, but fair or not, I’ve learned how vital this thing can be to a book’s life and success. The thing I’m talking about is the Amazon review. I have to admit I’ve never liked being asked directly for a review. There’s pressure and expectation and a bit of ickiness all rolled into one. So if you feel as I have, you are utterly free to ignore this. But if you’ve read any of my books and enjoyed them, I’d be super grateful if you took a moment or two to write a quick note on Amazon.

Here are quick and easy links to find my books there:

May B.
Blue Birds
Over in the Wetlands

Thank you, friends, for your faithful support and enthusiasm. I look forward to sending out oodles of bookmarks and stickers.

The post Free Bookmarks for Readers…and a Review Request appeared first on Caroline Starr Rose.

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From SCBWI-NM:

Veronica Bartles and family are due to move back to Maryland this August. While on a trip back to Maryland to check on their home, Veronica discovered some pipes had burst. There was water damage to the entire house, and it was overtaken with mold. The insurance company won’t cover any of the damage because the damage wasn’t found soon enough, voiding the policy.

Veronica Bartles has been a vital part of our local chapter of SCBWI for the last few years. She and her family are facing not only a move but an enormous financial responsibility in repairing their home. On their own. Emily Moore has arranged an auction to raise money for the Bartles family, and I’ve donated an ARC of Blue Birds and a finished copy of Over in the Wetlands. Opening bids start at $10. If you are a writer, there are a variety of other items that will interest you, from critiques to phone consultations with writers and agents.

Blue Birds auction page
Wetlands auction page

I encourage you to consider participating and would be thrilled if you spread the word. The auction closes Friday, 7/31.

The post Help Author Veronica Bartles: Bid on Blue Birds and Wetlands appeared first on Caroline Starr Rose.

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It feels especially appropriate that the first Blue Birds discussion I’ve had with readers was with the fourth-grade book club I help lead. These girls are dynamite and had so many great questions and observations.

The last time we met, I introduced the history behind the story, giving each girl a copy of the Lost Colony timeline before handing out their books. This background information helped them grasp the historical events so the story could unfold without confusion.

Beth (my running partner and co-leader) and I read the first four passages where Alis and Kimi meet. And the girls got it! They talked about the initial reaction both characters had to each other and how this slowly changed, how they moved from viewing each other as “other” to friend.

It can be strange for readers to candidly discuss a book with the author present, so I try to tell groups two things ahead of time:

• If you don’ t like the book, please don’t pretend you do, just because I’m in the room. (Ideally readers will have a chance to discuss without the author present, too.)
• My opinions on the story are only that — opinions. Once a book is in the world, it no longer belongs to the author. While I might see things one way, that doesn’t make it the only way to experience the story.

It’s been so satisfying to see these girls grow as readers this year. The discussions have become more natural, richer, deeper each time we’ve come together. Several drew parallels between Blue Birds and the other historical novel we read, Fever 1793. There were some predictions about the end (we’ve only read half at this point) and comments about George, who though not a main character feels like an important one, as one girl said.

In my mind’s eye I’m imagining these six sitting in their fifth-grade classrooms next year. When they get to that little textbook paragraph about England’s first colony, that doomed one called Roanoke, they’ll know the history because they now own a piece of the story. Historical fiction makes the past personal, vivid, real. I love that I got to participate in some small way in opening up the past to young readers.

The post Absolutely Floating appeared first on Caroline Starr Rose.

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Here are two new resources for those of you interested in learning more about Blue Birds.

Educator’s Guide
Lost colony timeline

And breaking news! Evidence that colonists indeed were on Hatteras Island (Croatoan)!

Archeologists Find New Evidence of Lost Colonists on Hatteras :: The Outer Banks Voice

The post BLUE BIRDS Resources and Lost Colony News! appeared first on Caroline Starr Rose.

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In Caroline Rose Starr's Blue Birds, the two main characters are Alis, an English girl, and Kimi, a Roanoke girl. Set in July 1587, Blue Birds is a Lost Colony story.

Alis and her family come ashore at Roanoke. Among them is Governor White and his daughter. She is pregnant with Virginia (Virginia Dare is widely recognized as the first English person born in what came to be known as the United States).They are in the fourth English group that Kimi's people interact with. Before them, we read, there were three other groups. The first one took two Native men back to England: Mateo (a Croatoan) and Wanchese (a Roanoke).

With Alis's group is Manteo. Having spent the last few months living in London, he dresses like English people but still has long hair. Alis thinks of him as "that savage."

Kimi watches Alis's group. She thinks of them as "strange ones." Some of her people think they are "spirits back from the dead" and others say that they have "invisible weapons that strike with sickness after they've gone." Kimi's father told her they were "people like us, only with different ways." But, her father is dead.

Dead? Yes. Soon, we learn that Kimi's father, Wingina, was beheaded by the second group of colonists, and that Wanchese (he's her uncle) killed the people in the third group.

Did you catch that? The English beheaded her father. Yet, she's going to befriend Alis.

Possible? Yes. Plausible? I don't think so.

Why does she do this? Because she's lonely.

See, her sister died of disease brought by those English.

Did you catch that?! Her sister's death is due to the English. But... she's going to befriend this English girl?

Possible? Yes. Plausible? I don't think so!

And... Alis. When they land, she finds the bones of a man. She worries they may be the bones of her uncle, Samuel. Soon after that, one of the Englishmen (Mr. Howe) is killed, adding to her fear of the Roanoke people. She imagines them, waiting. Watching. Yet, she, too, is lonely enough to move past her fears. Is that possible? Yes. It is plausible? I don't think so!

Human emotions aside, let's look at the some of the ways the Roanoke people think and live.

It is a challenge to imagine how the people of a culture not your own, of a time not your own would think of you. In this case, we have a not-Native writer imagining how Native people think about English people. A good many non-Native writers lapse into a space where we (Native people) are shown as primitive and in awe of Europeans who came to Native lands. We see this in Kimi (Kindle Locations 367-370):

The English have great power,
mightier than we have seen
in the agile deer,
the arrows of our enemies,
the angry hurricane.
Able to blot out the sun.

There's other things that bother me about Blue Birds. One of the stereotypical ways of depicting Native people is how quietly they move, not making a sound. Kimi does that. Another stereotype is the way that Kimi thinks of Alis's wooden bird. Kimi thinks it is Alis's power:

I imagine her cowering in her village
without her power.
I want to see
her weakness.

She comes from brutal people,
yet is as loving
with her mother as we are.

Can both things we true?

That passage in Blue Birds gets at the heart of what I think Caroline Rose Starr is trying to do. Have two girls come to see past differences in who each one and her people are, to the humanity in both. She's not the first to do this. Children's literature has a lot of historical fiction like this... Sign of the Beaver is one; so is Helen Frost's Salt. 

When the two girls come face to face, Kimi thinks of her dad and sister's death. In her language, she tells Alis "You have brought us sorrow." Kimi sees that Alis is frightened by her words and thinks that balance has been restored.

The balance has been restored?! I think that's too tidy.

There are other things that don't sit well with me... the parts of the story where Kimi has a ceremony, marking her passage from child to woman is one. The parts where the Roanoke's are dancing around the fire at night, preparing for attack? That just reminds me of Little House on the Prairie! Indeed, Alis's mom reminds me of Ma!

As the friendship between the two girls continues, they worry for each other's safety. Kimi gives Alis her montoac (power, pearls given to her in that womanhood ceremony). In the end, Alis goes Native. That is, she chooses to live with Kimi. And when the English return, she looks upon them, crouching behind some reeds as she watches them.

That ending--with Alis living with Indians--parallels a theory about what happened to that Lost Colony. In the author's note, Starr tells readers about the Lost Colony. I'm glad to see that note but the story she told? Overall, for me it does not work, and it makes me wonder about the motivation to create friendship stories like this? They seem so more idealized than anything that might really happen between children of peoples at war. And, given that these stories are told--not by Native people--seems telling, too. Borne, perhaps, of guilt? Or what? I don't know, really.

Starr's Blue Bird, published in 2015 by G. P. Putnam's Sons (an imprint of Penguin Group) is not recommended.

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We Need Diverse Books. We absolutely do. Books that don't merely place a "non-mainstream" character into the story for the sake of inclusion. Books that go much deeper than the announcement of, or allusion to, skin color, origin countries, sexual preferences. Books that don't operate as if conforming to PC checklists. Books that function outside the circle of slogans and tell real stories.

Truly diverse books are books in which the culture and cultural heritage and economics of the characters are essential to the story being told. They explore wide ranging personages, languages, histories, orientations, dreams. They are steeped in the particular social and personal pressures faced by very particular (and particularly well-drawn) characters. They introduce characters that seem to live not just on the page, but off it.

Middle grade/YA novels such as Ann E. Burg's Serafina's Promise, Thanhha Lai's Inside Out and Back Again, and Patricia McCormick's Never Fall Down and Sold have, among many other titles, introduced lasting, fully dimensional, diverse characters to younger readers. With her second stunning middle grade novel, Blue Birds, Caroline Starr Rose has made another important addition to this canon.

Blue Birds is a novel in verse that explores a little-known chapter of American history concerning the "Lost Colony" of Roanoke. It's late in the 16th century. English explorers have arrived to Roanoke Island, off Virginia. Conflict and distrust erupt among the native tribes and the English.

Into this setting Rose has placed two young girls—Alis, from England, and Kimi, a Roanoke who has watched the English bring disease and disaster to her world. Out on her own, Alis discovers the natural beauty of the place. Watching, Kimi must decide whether or not to trust this fair-skinned creature. Will Alis and Kimi be able to peel back the social prejudice and befriend one another? Will they be able to step over the great divide that rises whenever individual people are presented with difference? And what will they do—what can they do—as tensions mount in their respective communities?

Rose has given us a complex story, a real and researched story, a story that, despite its roots in late 16th century America, feels contemporary. The questions about other are neither dodged nor trumped, and they never feel commercially strategic. The questions arise because such questions naturally do, because this is the story Starr is telling. And look how gracefully and honestly she tells it:

Why do they dress as they do?
To speak their language,
does it feel as it sounds,
like sharpened rocks on  your tongue?
What makes their skin
the color of a snake's underside?
Why do the men not keep their faces smooth
but grow hair from their cheeks?
Do they ever bathe?
For their strong odor lingers
long after they've gone.

Though they
have brought us heartache,
must all of them
be enemies?

In bringing readers Alis and Kimi, Starr has not just brought us a distant era. She's brought her readers a way of sinking in with real questions about difference—and a credible suggestion that such differences might be overcome.

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As I did with May B., I am donating to one lucky school, library, homeschool co-op, or reading circle a Blue Birds Book Club Kit. The kit will include the following:

• 10 copies of Blue Birds
• teacher / discussion guide
• bookmarks and stickers for all readers
• interactive Skype visit

Grades four through eight qualify. To enter, simply tell me about your readers and why Blue Bird is a good fit for your group in the comments below. That’s it! 

The contest is open to US residents only. Winners will be announced March 27. Thanks to G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers for providing the books.

The post Win a Ten-Copy BLUE BIRDS Book Club Kit! appeared first on Caroline Starr Rose.

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Yesterday we celebrated Blue Birds at Page One.

I got to give a little Over in the Wetlands: A Hurricane-on-the-Bayou Story preview. Also, it seems I took a nap.

Look! There’s my student teaching partner, Eva!

Thank you, friends, for all your kindness these last few days. It’s been a wonderful privilege giving my book over to you.

 

 

The post An Afternoon in Pictures appeared first on Caroline Starr Rose.

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Don’t forget to enter for a chance to win one of four Blue Birds poetry rings.

Composed in varying formats, the descriptive and finely crafted poems reveal the similarities the two girls share, from loved ones lost to hatred between the English and the Roanoke to a desire for peace…Fans of Karen Hesse and the author’s May B. (2012) will delight in this offering.
— Kirkus

Rose skillfully paints the abject loneliness that primes both girls for friendship… Though the poems generally alternate between the girls’ voices, Rose occasionally combines both perspectives into a single poem to powerful effect… Rich with detail, it’s a memorable account of a friendship that transcends culture and prejudice.
— Publisher’s Weekly

With two compelling main characters and an abundance of rich historical detail, Rose’s latest novel offers much to discuss and much to appreciate.
— School Library Journal

The author skillfully builds conflict between the colonists and the Native Americans and between Alis and Kimi and their respective families… It is an excellent historical offering and belongs on public and school library shelves.
— VOYA

An imaginative historical novel with two sympathetic protagonists.
–Booklist

The post Reviews are In! appeared first on Caroline Starr Rose.

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Last fall I decided I wanted some sort of artistic representation of Blue Birds. It was meant to be a gift to myself, a celebration of the love and hard work I’d put in, and perhaps something I could share with readers, too. Some of you have seen (and received) the lovely, lovely Pinch of Daring print Annie Barnett of Be Small Studios made.

Today I want to share another beautiful Blue Birds token.

Kerry Gauthier of CS Literary Jewelry has designed two different Blue Birds rings, each with a different portion of a poem. I have four rings to give away.

The way to enter to win a ring is super easy. Simply take a picture of yourself with a copy of Blue Birds and share it on Twitter or Facebook with the hashtag #BlueBirds. Because the book is about friendship, here’s where I sweeten the deal: Take a picture with a friend, add in a copy of Blue Birds, and you’ll both be entered to win. Winners will be announced Wednesday, March 18.

I can’t wait to see what you have to share!

 

 

 

 

 

The post Four BLUE BIRDS Poetry Rings: A Giveaway appeared first on Caroline Starr Rose.

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Today is the last day you can receive this beautiful print if you pre-order Blue Birds. Details below.

My husband’s first pastorate out of seminary was in Northern Virginia, just outside Washington DC. He was a youth pastor and I was a teacher, and we were still pretty new to town. One Sunday a young couple visited our church. I casually chatted with them — a British fellow with the name Steve Martin (isn’t that fun?) and his lovely American wife, Jamie. And in those few moments I had one of those weird experiences I’d only had once before: I knew immediately that Jamie and I would become very good friends.

It was a strange feeling with no real basis, other than an underlining conviction we had clicked in a meaningful way. Almost fifteen years have passed since that Sunday. We’ve lived apart for eleven of them. But the fledgling friendship that started that day has been one of my life’s dearest gifts.

One spring Jamie came to visit us in Michigan. As the two of us wandered through an antique shop, she handed me a worn school primer she’d found on a shelf. Maybe it will be helpful for that new book idea you have, she said. It ended up being key. On the day May B. came into the world, Jamie wrote something that to this day makes me cry.

As I struggled with writing Blue Birds, Jamie was the one to tell me good work is often hard work. Each time I’d email about how difficult it all was, she’d remind me the writing was hard because it was important.

This time last year I was deep in the midst of second-round edits and desperate to connect with Alis and Kimi in a meaningful way. So I started wearing a strand of pearls. Everyday. With sweats and dressy clothes and everything in between. Unless I was sleeping or exercising, the pearls were there. My Blue Birds girls share a pearl necklace (you can see Alis wearing it on the cover). Wearing pearls was a constant reminder of their friendship, a way to meet them beyond my writing sessions, to carry them with me to the grocery store, while walking the dog, into life’s small, quiet moments.

It was during this time I found this treasure in my mailbox. A gift from Jamie (who knew nothing about the pearls). And that’s when I knew with certainty exactly who this book was for.

If we’re lucky, we find friends in this world who love us as we are and bring out our best selves. I hope that’s what I’ve captured in Alis and Kimi’s relationship. It’s what Jamie Martin has given me.

This post is part of a week-long celebration in honor of  Blue Birds. I’m giving away a downloadable PDF of this beautiful Blue Birds quote (created by Annie Barnett of Be Small Studios) for anyone who pre-orders the book from January 12-19. Simply click through to order from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Books A Million, IndieBound, or Powell’s, then email a copy of your receipt to [email protected] by Monday, January 19.

Join the Celebration!

An Interview with Caroline Starr Rose, author of Blue Birds :: From the Mixed Up Files…

What I’m Reading: Blue Birds by Caroline Starr Rose :: Views from a Window Seat

Blue Birds :: Augusta Scattergood

Blue Birds Interview with Caroline Starr Rose :: Reflections on the Teche

Book Review: Blue Birds by Caroline Starr Rose :: Book Covers

 

 

 

The post The Gift of Friendship appeared first on Caroline Starr Rose.

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Books grow from a lot of places. Blue Birds is firmly rooted in two of my childhood friendships.

In 1980 I moved back to the US from Saudi Arabia at the ripe old age of six. I didn’t understand America, this place with “deer crossing signs” (weren’t those pictures of goats?) and weird playground slang. While living on the other side of the world, what had once been familiar was now strange. That’s when I met Sergio, my boy-next-door, playmate, classmate, sometimes sworn enemy, and stand-in sibling. Our friendship gave us a place to be ourselves, to grow into our fuller selves. It was a safe place for me to navigate my new surroundings and learn about my new home.

A few years later, I met Anna. We traded books, dreamed big dreams, were hugely creative and beyond silly. Anna moved away in fifth grade, and our mothers let us call each other twice a year — on our birthdays and Christmas. The rest of the time we wrote letters, hers filling up a blue suitcase I kept in my closet, mine filling up a red toolbox in hers. Since 1985, we’ve seen each other only five times. I still count Anna as one of my dearest friends.

How have your childhood friends influenced you? 

This post is part of a week-long celebration in honor of  Blue Birds. I’m giving away a downloadable PDF of this beautiful Blue Birds quote (created by Annie Barnett of Be Small Studios) for anyone who pre-orders the book from January 12-19. Simply click through to order from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Books A Million, IndieBound, or Powell’s, then email a copy of your receipt to [email protected] by Monday, January 19.

Join the celebration!

Blue Birds by Caroline Starr Rose :: Kid Book List

Good Friends and Good Books: Blue Birds by Caroline Starr Rose :: Victoria Easter Wilson

Blue Birds by Caroline Starr Rose :: The Readers and Writers Paradise

Bravery in a Foreign Land: Celebrating Caroline Starr Rose’s Blue Birds :: Amy Rogers Hays

Blue Birds by Caroline Starr Rose :: Well Read Sleepy Head

Blue Birds, by Caroline Starr Rose, and an Unlikely Friendship :: Our House in the Middle of Our Street

 

 

The post The Childhood Friendships Behind BLUE BIRDS appeared first on Caroline Starr Rose.

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